I've searched dozens of forums and sites and am unable to find a solution to this perplexing problem - if anyone can help I will be very grateful. It maybe a Windows XP rather than a Puppy problem.............

I have applied the "missing link" patch to enable CUPS to offer the "Windows Printer via Samba" option

I have installed the HPIJS .pet and can configure CUPS to print to the HP Deskjet 3920

I have confirmed that the Deskjet when directly connected to the Thinkpad/Puppy USB port works and can print the CUPS test page and sample prints from applications

I have set both file and printer sharing on the Windows PC and can successfully detect and mount and access the shared files on Puppy using PNetHood

I can apparently send print jobs from Puppy to the Windows PC - when the print is requested, the print job appears very quickly in the Windows PC printer properties display. I have sent print jobs from CUPS Admin, from SMBClient and by printing to Default from Geany.

Then the problem starts - the Deskjet makes a couple of "I'm getting ready to start to print" noises but then goes silent and no printout appears. The print job cannot be deleted from the XP print queue by normal means.

I have tried various user accounts on XP both with and without passwords and various forms of the DeviceURI in /etc/cups/printers.conf - smb://computer_name/printer_name but in all cases the XP print queue shows the job owner as Guest

So I'm flummoxed and need some help please?
Is the problem an incompatibility between the Deskjet printer drivers on Puppy and XP ?? (how do the 2 printer drivers interact over Samba? I'm unsure.........).
Is the problem some sort of access permission problem on XP ??
Should I abandon HPIJS and try the rather complicated generic postscript solution given at http://puppylinux.org/wiki/how-tos/general/genericsharedpostscriptprinteronwindows ??

Network printing from Puppy has always been an adventure. If it works, it works perfectly. If it doesn't work, there never seems to be a solution. There are three possible culprits:

1. Puppy. Other Linux's seem to do a better job.
2. Wireless / wired networking, routers, firewalls, etc.
3. The printer. I suspect that some printers only work if they are physically connected to their host computer.

By any chance, could you get a Windows laptop and try to print wireless from it? That would help to eliminate some sources of the problem.

Also, it would be interesting to see what happens if you turn things around and print from Windows to Puppy using this method.

So I think this proves that my original problem wasn't a wifi or networking or router problem nor an XP problem but some sort of problem between the 2 types of HP driver on the client and server.

I now seem to have a different problem - to get the badly behaved applications to print - anybody got any suggestions??

Printing is acceptably speedy BTW even though my Thinkpad 600 is pretty old and slow, my wifi is 802.11b and there's obviously quite a bit of software that gets involved in all the different translations.

I've struggled with Puppy printing for 18 mnths, ever since I started with Puppy. As rcrsn51 says- if it works, then it works; if it doesn't, then it doesn't.

One thing I've found is: If the application gives only a "Generic Postscript" choice at print time, and your printer is not a generic postscript printer, then you will never print. YOUR printer has to show up on the printer menu.

My printer is connected to an XP machine, but connection is via a wired network. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've checked firewalls, permissions, sharing, samba, and so on, but never managed to get a set-up that worked consistently, except 4.1.2 retro. That works if I make sure that the XP machine is on, the printer is on, and I then use PNethood to connect Print$ with the "use cifs" box checked before starting work.

I've also found that if printing will not work, then file sharing usually does. Next time I get trouble, I intend to copy the file that I want to print into a Windows share folder, then try printing it using Word. Could be informative.

And, sshh...... Debian works, no bother. Too big and slow for my old crock of a machine, and all the "you are not allowed to do that" password stuff.....

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